Comprehensive sanctions, not war, will bring the extremists to heel and send a message of support to the Iranian people, writes Lord Fraser
Focus
The Scotsman – In August 2002, after 18 years of deception over their clandestine nuclear programmes, the mullahs were exposed by their main oppoìnents. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), led by Maryam Rajavi, unmasked the mullahs’ two clandestine nuclear sites for enriching uranium and producing plutonium in the towns of Natanz and Arak.
The starter’s gun had been fired in the sprint between the mullahs to acquire nuclear weapons and the West in its efforts to thwart them. How did the wily mullahs manage to leave the West on the starting blocks, as they near the end of the race?
Tehran had a cunning game plan. With the cover blown off of its nuclear programme, the Iranian regime went all out to make the final dash towards acquiring nuclear weapons. With a restive population, 94 per cent of whom oppose the mullahs, and straddled by coalition troops on their eastern and western borders, Tehran’s leaders looked to nuclear weapons as the only means of prolonging their rule at home and expanding their Islamic fundamentalist control beyond Iran’s borders.
To complete their nuclear projects, however, the mullahs knew time was of the essence. They thus embarked on a two-pronged foreign policy. On the one hand, the mullahs negotiated with the West by waving the carrot of multi-billion-dollar trade deals, and on the other, beat the West with the stick of terrorism, most effectively in Iraq.
The reaction by the West was at best feeble – a policy of "engagement" with Tehran, doggedly pursued by the Euroìpean Union. Its proponents hoped that by providing the Iranian regime with concessions and offering it an array of incentives, it would empower the so-called moderates in the Iranian regime.
So, the European Union offered Iran a trade and co-operation agreement and vowed to support the country’s bid for membership of the World Trade Organisation.
The EU also acceded to Tehran’s demand to blacklist the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI), the largest member organisaìtion of the NCRI.
Engagement, sometimes described as "appeasement", was of course doomed to failure, for it rested on two fundamental misconceptions: First, that Iran’s regime is capable of and willing, to moderate. Second, that Iran’s regime could be persuaded to abandon its nuclear programmes. This wrong headed approach has now plunged the world into the current international crisis.
Rather than strengthening the soì-called reformers and the reform proìcess in Iran, the hardliners have taken full control. Iran’s president now talks of destroying lsrael and of a"final war" between the Muslim world and "global arrogance".
The shrewd mullahs entered into various agreements with the EU over their nuclear programmes, knowing that they had no intention of abiding by their terms, but did so as a means of buying time.
But even when Iran blatantly breached the agreements reached with the EU in August 2005, it took the West eight months to pluck up the courage to refer Iran’s nuclear file to the United Nations Security Council. Even then, the council issued a presidential statement on 29 March, 2006, giving Iran yet a further 30 days to comply.
What has Iran’s response been? It has identified 29 strategic sites in the United States and Britain, which it has threatened will be attacked by suicide bombers if Iran is provoked, and fired its first stealth missile capable of carrying multiple warheads and an under-water missile capable of destroying submarines and battleships.
On 11 April, the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, brazenly boasted that lran had joined the nuclear club by completing its nuclear fuel cycle for uranium enrichment. Moreover, the April deadline having passed, the International Atomic Energy Agency has reported that Iran has ignored the demands of the UN Security Council and instead accelerated its nuclear programme.
I was an early enthusiast of dialogue andengagement with Tehran, but have long repented. Engagement has failed miserably and brought us to the brink of a potentially devastating war.
However, war is not the answer and nor is a continuation of the status quo. Instead, the solution to the mullahs’ threat to world peace and stability rests firmly in the hands of the Iranian people and their main opposition.
The time for negotiating with Tehran is over. The West must immediìately adopt a robust policy towards the mullahs by applying comprehensive sanctions, including oil, arm and technological embargoes, as well as the freezing of assets abroad and placing of travel restrictions on Iranian officials.
This will be the first step in sending the right message to the long-suffering Iranians that we are on their side and not on the side of their oppressors. The second step is to remove the unjust terror label from the PMOI, thereby removing the greatest obstacle to democratic change in Iran.
-The Rt Hon The Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, QC, is a former solicitor general and lord advocate for Scotland
